More than 1.1million people were killed at infamous Nazi death camp Auschwitz before liberation by the Red Army in 1945. When I visited Auschwitz/Birkenua it was not the Auschwitz camp that made the greatest impression but the stark sister camp of Birkenau with its iconic brick building and the railway lines that brought in the prisoners for “selection”, one side to the gas chamber, to the other, life and work but ultimately for most, death by over work, starvation, beatings and for some death at the hands of Dr Josef Mengele who conducted “medical experiments” on prisoners.

All prisoners were tattooed with specific numbers and made to wear striped pyjamas.

Survivors who escaped the gas chambers at Auschwitz have remembered the horror of the infamous Nazi death camp 70 years after liberation by Red Army soldiers. A timely reminder given the anti-Semitism that seems to be permeating through Europe and other parts of the world.